Thursday, October 06, 2016

Clara Oswald - The Impossible Girl in Full Control

Now that the new Doctor Who sidekick has been introduced it is time to look back on Clara Oswald and how the impossible girl - and not the Doctor - is in full control. Still not a fan though.

From the 2013 Doctor Who Episode "Bells of Saint John"

As of 2017 Pearl Mackie will be Doctor Who’s new companion. The character she plays is funny and geeky and vulnerable. There’s a goofiness to her and a big heart. She gets things wrong, she has a temper. Apart from Theresa May becoming PM, no other appointment of a British woman this year has excited so much fuss.

Kink is about fun. Odd fun, incomprehensebable fun, but fun nonetheless.  Some take their kink to serious and can't separate it from real life. You know the ones who keep nagging  about "for us it is real"{ Now really? Come on!)

The fact that kink is a source of joy doesn't take the sting out of it. Pun intended and of course it all depends on your point of view. Femdom is fun, but also whacky and weird. But then again why not? The world at large will never understand, yet they poke fun of those who find happiness in the shadows. If only they understood happiness is a beast that cannot be tamed.

By now you know, I never take my kink too seriously. My happiness on the other hand is of the utmost concern. How I reach my personal Nirvana differs from the path everyone else travels.  I created the hashtag #NeverNormal to illustrate how TV and movies poke fun of what they do not understand. There are tidbits everywhere. Just look at American Dad or The Simpsons.

Often it stares you right in the face. The Big Bang Theory is all about the mistress-slave dynamic. And why not? Then again, sometimes you have to peel away the layers to reveal the truth.  I cannot prove it, but somehow it feels like the percentage of Whovians in the BDSM community is much larger than the number of Doctor Who fans in the general audience. I don't know why, nor can I come up with any kind of explanation for that.

Steven Moffat is show runner for both Doctor Who and Sherlock. Everybody remembers Irene Adler from that "Scandal in Belgravia" episode. Kinda botched up to be honest. But if you look at Doctor Who - and especially the most recent episodes - there is a strong femdom undercurrent.

"Shut up and do as you're told" That's Clarissa Oswald, the Doctor's most recent companion bossing her personal Timelord around. Kind of odd, isn't it, a secondary school teacher talking to an omnipotent time traveller like that? Even more puzzling, he obeys without hesistation, never questioning her authority.

Of course there is the Doctor's wife - hello sweetie. Were you just as disappointed by last year's Christmas episode as I was?  Still, no-one bosses the Doctor around like the impossible girl. If you are not familiar with the details of Dr Who it may sound odd but despite her mortal soul, she - not the travelling timelord - is very much in control of the whole operation.

Previous incarnarnations of the Doctor were high on Prozac clones of a travelling timelord with a laissez fair approach, but the latest Doctor is much more introspective, soul searching if you like. That makes room for a strong, capable side-kick.

When Clara was first introduced, she already had become the impossible girl, part human, part Dalek. Even after her transformation into an alien and became conscient of it, she used her last bit of humanity to save the Doctor. The concept appeals to me for it emphasizes two very different things. First there is one's personal struggle between two conflicting sides of who we are. On top of that there is the sacrifice people sometimes - choose to - make to save those whom they love.

The next time we meet Clara is during the Christmas season. The impossible girl has been reincarnated as Victorian governess - a femdom archetype.  Fortunately when it comes to the children in her care she is kind and caring.

The second ressurection of the impossible girl is when she  appears as a modern day secondary school teacher, another femdom classic. Of course she goes on to become the Doctor's companion - as if he has a choice. Later, when she dives into the time stream to save the doctor, she shows her protective nature. It is an element I especially appreciate because it highlights the fact that any relationship worth that name is between two people. Mistress always protects her slave, just like her servant guards her wellbeing without being ordered to do so.  After all servitude is mostly invisible.

Of course things get a little weird when Missy - nope her name is not the Mistress - locks Clara inside a Dalek for a second time. Still, after being under his bed in one of the best episodes in recent Doctor Who memory - and a very intimate moment as well - there is no doubt who is running the show.

The coup de grâce is delivered during the 2015 season finale. Doctor Who has just escaped the Timelord's maze after wandering in it for some 4,5  billion years. In order to protect the two of them, the Doctor decides to wipe Clara's mind. Fast forward and a shattered Timelord enters some bar. The Doctor talks of these flashbacks he cannot escape about a girl who matters more to him than anything else. The woman behinds the counter manages a wry smile.

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